Lisa Shock

Tea, I don't like coffee. That said, I do like to indulge the occasional cup of chocolate in cold weather....

I found some clips: http://www.fujitv.co.jp/doga/index.html#Y/v6R1lZX58tg/PLh4aJSJaObrbAvLIyZGSOJ7LDjHxlICLL/612000005

I've taught from several books, and I prefer Professional Baking. The CIA book has some good things, but, it's missing some fundamental basic topics and formulas. (There's no white bread, no plain tuile, etc.) When I taught with it, I had to create my own supplemental booklet to give students basic formulas for many standard items. Professional Baking is a better foundation book.

Good point about the oven, in some countries regular houses and apartments simply don't have them.

As for a food processor, I have never owned one. But, please remember that I have good knife skills and can cut things very quickly. (I have been the knife skills point person on competition teams) Generally, my thinking is that it's faster for me to cut things by hand, and there's less cleanup. I think the only time I have regretted not having one was when I was trying to make a confection that called for grinding down several pounds of dried apricots. I do own a blender and a hand blender. And, I own several mortars and pestles, one I just use wet. In a pinch, I could just get by with the hand blender alone, I think. Given sparse resources, I'd take the immersion blender -in the country's chosen electrical standard.

I managed to live for a couple of years with a wok, multi-tiered bamboo steamer, a 3 qt. pot with lid, and a 9x13 baking dish. If you don't have a oven, the baking dish could go. Essentially, I used the 3qt pot for anything involving boiling water: rice, pasta, soup, stew, etc. Fresh veg got cooked in the steamer, and, I'd even make sauces in a small ceramic bowl placed in the steamer. Admittedly, I was going through a phase of studying Chinese food, and, was sharing a house/kitchen with 3 other women, so I often had to make my dinner on 1 burner. Sometimes, only the oven was available to me, so I roasted a lot of foods. I eventually added a cast iron frying pan just to have a flat bottomed pan to make pancakes with. I guess the trick is to ask yourself what sorts of meals do you make most often, and what pans would you need to do that? I think everyone will have a different answer to this.

That would be the intelligent way to approach it if the recipe is the only goal but I'm actually interested in the process of trying to figure it out. I can look at a list of ingredients for a food dish and feel pretty confident about putting it together, even without measures disclosed, and ending up in the general vicinity of what was intended. I was just curious if there's a way of approaching that with drinks, where often the smallest of changes make a big difference. Maybe it's a tough call to get the same drink without more information but it looks like there are ways to narrow it down to a few likely suspects if you have sufficient knowledge of the craft. Experience, and maybe even instinct, probably helps narrow it down even further. I'm guessing that Chris and Stephen are at least within a hair of the actual recipes and wouldn't be surprised at all if any of them turned out to be spot on. Seeing how they thought about it to get those results is exacty what I'm after. So, even if this thread dies (which I hope it doesn't), I've already learned from it. My intention was simply to point out that passionate people in the food industry are also generally nice people who are willing to help out fellow foodies. I wasn't trying to kill the creativity, sorry, carry on.

Honestly, I'd try emailing them and simply asking. I've gotten a lot of formulas this way.

At least where the Cheesecake Factory is concerned, they assume that you're taking a lot of the meal home to eat on another day. I recall reading an article about their menu strategy and they said they knew that one of their strong points was that women would eat there because they knew that the next day's lunch would be taken care of with leftovers, and they viewed it as very economical.

Yeah, it's the same principle behind why you shouldn't add acid to bean cooking liquid, they won't soften if the liquid is too acidic. Add the acid right before serving, for perfect beans.

I forgot t mention that many cocoa powders contain fat, so, there is generally an adjustment for that as well.

Generally, butter is 20% water and 80% fat, so, a substitution generally involves an adjustment to the water or milk weight as well as the fat weight. There are also leavening adjustments if the original recipe using the creaming method for the sugar and butter since that leavens the cake -generally one would increase the baking powder/soda measure, or add it if none is in the original butter formula.

The main issue is that many employers don't know about ACF certification, don't understand it, and/or don't care. If more employers took it seriously, I think there would be more overall respect for the back of the house. -And a lot fewer people faking it back there, too.

Thanks HowardLi, I enjoyed the article!

http://www.acfchefs.org/Content/NavigationMenu2/Certification/Levels/CC/default.htm That's a link for the current requirements for certification at the lowest level for a regular, hot-side, cook. (There are certifications for Pastry, Personal Chefs, Administrators and Educators which I am not discussing in this thread. I myself am a lowly CPC, so, I know a bit more about Pastry certification than I do about the hot-side. However, my past employer hosted practical exams, so I have seen all sorts of practicals in progress.) Note that the very first requirement is two years work experience, or, one year plus a degree from an accredited culinary school, or and associates degree from an accredited culinary school that requires an externship. -That is where the cooking background comes in. On top of the cooking background, there are required classes -three 30-hour classes with final exams. Then, come the written exam and the 2½ hour practical exam. The practical varies from test to test, but generally involves knife cuts, and making two complete plates of food (protein, starch, veg) along with some other requirements, which vary, like say, boning a whole chicken intact. The upper levels of certification build on the lower levels and are more difficult. The practical exams go from a few hours long to a few days, to over a week. At every level, the practical exam is an important part of certification. It would not be possible to complete the practical without having extensive (not just knowing how to cook the menu of the last couple places you worked at) real-world cooking experience.

I'd like to address the misconception that the US has no skills standards for cooks. Membership and rank in the ACF is directly tied to skills. There are written examinations, practical examinations, apprenticeships, university-level course requirements in sanitation and management, etc. all required. For fun, there are highly regulated competitions and mentoring programs. Now, ACF members represent a a small percentage of all the cooks in the US, but please, do not deny our existence!

I believe that is because, initially, the first flight attendants were registered nurses. The whole procedure/process on the plane was handled like a visit to fancy medical clinic. Since we don't have a tipping culture in the world of hospitals, that's how it's evolved.

Peels could be used for orangecello. And, candied, for use in baking.

Generally, good, real extra virgin grades do taste of olives. Trader Joe's has an oil marked kalamata and it tastes strongly of that type of olive.

Can you rig up a cover for the setup so the soil doesn't blow into your pool during the next hurricane? I've had issues with the wind in Arizona with regards to elevated planters.

I agree that you should sample it out and ask for input. There may be something that you don't notice, that turns other people off. For me, some white cakes taste of coconut, even if they don't have any coconut in them. And, since I don't like coconut, I have a very tentative relationship with white cake. About 20% of the US population doesn't like coconut. So, it could be something like this.

Wow, just wow.

Some states don't allow for complete redistribution, sometimes only certain employees can share. One day, if I get my own place, I'll do 'no tips' and pay everyone a living wage. (maybe a jar on the counter, to be split, but, customers would know that servers did not need to be tipped)

"I also would recommend "Professional Cooking" by Wayne Gisslen." -me too! As a culinary school instructor, I feel that it's important to learn about ingredients, and then about techniques. Particular recipes aren't as important as knowing why a braise differs from a grilled steak, and why you want to use different cuts of meat for each of those techniques. Once you have a knowledge of the main ways of cooking foods, and, know your ingredients, individual recipes aren't so important. You can skim recipes and see what's going on with each one, and then decide which one to use, maybe because one recipe retrogrades the starch for you and that's an effect you want. Memorizing hundreds of formulas just isn't that important. Once you know about ingredients and technique, you can wing it a bit because you understand the effect of adding an acid, or, browning milk solids.

Sanitation nightmares aside, I think this sounds like fun and, I suspect that the review feature will slap some people into reality about the low quality of their food. -I've been subjected to a lot of miserable food over the past month which was presented by self-proclaimed 'gourmet' cooks.